Lilian Campbell was one of the first hundred women to graduate in law from the University of Glasgow and one of a minority to maintain a career in the profession. She was born in Dunoon on 8th April 1924 to Mary and Duncan Campbell, a family with a strong Presbyterian lineage back to the Disruption, a background which was formative in Lilian’s life. Her father was a master mariner who served on Arctic convoys during the Second World War. Lilian grew up with an adventurous spirit and followed in the footsteps of Margaret Howie Strang Hall, who mounted the first challenge to open the legal profession to women in 1901. Both young women lived in Kirn, Argyllshire, were star pupils at Dunoon Grammar and were determined to have a career in Law. Margaret Hall’s petition to open that door failed when the Court of Session found that she was not a ‘person’ within the meaning of the legislation governing entrance to the profession. Nearly half a century later, Lilian graduated M.A. (1946), LL.B. (1949), served an apprenticeship with Mackinnon, Ballantyne and Hurll and was admitted as a solicitor (1951). She had a breadth of academic and social interests as a student. Her curriculum encompassed Zoology (her lecture notes are available in GU Archives), Philosophy, and Economics. Indeed she was so interested in Zoology that after she graduated in Arts in 1946 she had explored the possibility of pursuing a BSc Honours in it. She chose a different direction. She matriculated in the Law Faculty and followed a standard curriculum, coming to show a strong interest in International Law. She was the secretary of the Philosophical Society and helped run the Juridical Society and the Christian Union. After graduating LL.B she went on to study Public Finance, Constitutional History and Scottish Economic History in the School of Social Study as part of the Diploma in Public Administration. She also gained a pass in Conveyancing, not part of her original Law degree. Equipped with a practising certificate Lilian worked at Kidston & Co. for a short time to 1951 when she took up a Carnegie Research Scholarship in International Law at the Hague Academy in Leyden under the supervision of Professor Van Asbeck, researching the implementation of international regulation of drugs of addiction. She returned to Kidston’s in 1953 to gain further experience as a solicitor. At the same time she was furthering her interest in academic research by matriculating at her alma mater as a PhD student under the supervision of John Neil in the International Law Department. Her topic was ‘A Study of Great Britain in relation to the International Control of Narcotic Drugs’. Her supervisor found her work very satisfactory over the two sessions from 1952-54 but in 1954 she intimated that she would not be returning for a final year. In 1955 she married William Carmichael, a conservationist in the Colonial Forest Service. The couple relocated to Tanganyika. In the years that followed Lilian combined bringing up a family with work as a journalist and English teacher. On their return to Edinburgh in the Sixties, however, she picked up her career in Law, continuing her interest in both academic work and practice. From 1970 to 1994 she taught Company Law and Business Law at Napier University until after retirement age and practised as a solicitor with Bryson & Davie. She was an exemplar of lifelong learning. Lilian Carmichael died on 1st February 2014, aged 89.
Sources
University of Glasgow Registry and General Council Records
Scotlands People
Law Lists
CoSS Petitions List CS46/1951/3/44
Obituary, The Times 21 May 2014 https://www.thetimes.co.uk>article
Obituary, The Scotsman, 29 March 2014 https://www.scotsman.com>news
